What These Thugs Steal From Us All

Alisha de Freitas reads this blog — thank you! — and comments on the Mall Killers thread about young black male crime, and those subsequent posts it inspired. Excerpt:

I hate this topic. I hate that Black dudes are channeling The Wire and killing each other with abandon. I hate that many more are rotting their lives away in prisons nationwide. I hate that many young boys in Detroit, Chicago (especially Chicago), Philadelphia, Camden and Newark are aspiring to this… imitation of life… desecration of life… destruction of life. I hate that many Black websites only skim the subject, using it to rehash slavery, segregation and the past, but don’t offer a single workable solution for the present. I hate that many (but certainly not all) Black churches are similarly mute on fixing these problems of the here and now, offering up promises of paradise in the future. I hate that so many of those same churches host funeral after funeral for these boys. Homegoings for those who unlike Kanye, will never come home again. I hate that white people fear us. I hate even more that with this violence, they have reason to. I hate that even though I share the same skin color, I’m scared as hell of them, too.

But what I hate most is that because of their foolish actions, people look down on my husband. Keiron, raised in Trinidad and Brazil, didn’t know about being searched by cops for drugs he didn’t have until he came here for college.

I appreciate Alisha’s honesty. I hate this topic too. I really do. I posted on it the other day because what happened at the Mall Of Louisiana was important, and, more broadly, because our public discussion of race in America is remarkably dishonest. If we’re ever going to get anywhere worth getting to on the race question (questions!) in this country, we are going to have to speak honestly of our fears, our anger, and our hope. I don’t know how black people talk among themselves about this stuff. I know how many white people talk among themselves about it — and it’s not the way they dare to talk in public. It is hard, I think, for many whites to see the humiliation that Alisha’s husband has to live with, in part because they believe that their own honest and justified fear of and frustration with black male crime will never be acknowledged and dealt with. My guess is that both blacks and whites (and people of other races who are party to this conversation) are so afraid of losing face, and of just … losing, that they are hard-pressed to acknowledge that the Other has cause to complain.

If people would at some point say, “I hear you, you’re right, that is wrong, and there’s no excuse for it,” instead of saying, “Yeah, but you’re more wrong, what about … “ — we might get somewhere. Alisha’s admitting that she, a black woman, is “just as scared of them too” is bigger than she realizes, maybe. My sense is that a lot of white people know, deep down, that good black people are just as scared as they are. What a lot of white people don’t understand is that black people have far more reason to be afraid of young black males, insofar as black people are far more often their victims. But when the issue comes up in public, it seems like the only voices the media pay attention to are the voices of people who condemn white racism. The reality of young black male crime — not young black female crime, not middle-aged black male crime, etc. — and the effect it has on fear and insecurity is downplayed.

To have a black person like Alisha admit that she too is scared, and she hates this violence too, matters, because it gives defensive white people room to acknowledge the justice of what many black people say about race and crime, including, for example, the indignity of what Alisha’s husband has to go through, and how infuriating and debilitating that must be to have to live like that.

I’ve written here before about walking around Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, a week after renting an apartment there in the summer of 1992, when the city was going through a terrible crime wave — all caused by violent young black males. Capitol Hill, where I lived, was at that time not nearly as safe as it is now. My roommate and I were walking up Massachusetts Avenue when three black boys, – — kids maybe 10, 11 years old, riding their bikes — stopped us on the sidewalk and started racially abusing us. We stood there and took it from these brats until we could walk away. We didn’t dare to say anything because we had seen the stories in the news about how DC police had arrested a kid just their age for having a loaded pistol strapped to the underside of his bike seat. How did we know these kids weren’t like this guy? We didn’t. We took their abuse, we grown men, letting fat-mouthing children talk to us that way. We were scared of these children because they were black boys, dressed like street thugs, and in those days, black males dressed like street thugs were to be avoided no matter what.

That’s a humiliating thing too.

These criminals rob us all — black and white and everybody else — of more than our property. They rob us of the moral sanity and solidarity with each other that are rightfully ours. They rob us of the chance to see each other as fellow human beings who suffer, and who have a right to be heard. I don’t listen to people whose only remarks about the reality of black male violence is to blame white people and white people’s history. I wouldn’t blame black people one bit for not listening to people who will not acknowledge the legacy of the wounds black people carry, inflicted by whites in slavery and in Jim Crow. My guess is that deep down, there are a lot of whites and blacks both who would be willing to concede the truth of both claims, and to work from there.

But we keep it to ourselves, because for our own reasons, we figure that there’s too much to lose by being honest about what we know, what we think we know, and what we fear.

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76 Responses to What These Thugs Steal From Us All

” Also, I’m unsure what the point of that statistic is to this conversation. Really, not being facetious. Comparing the black murder rate in a first world country to, what I assume, is the overall murder rate (you do know half their population is of East Indian descent, right?)”

I don’t know why I got the idea it was ‘boyfriend’ rather than husband, I apologize for that. And while I knew that a significant portion of Trinidad’s population was of East Indian descent — including the family of VS Naipaul, I believe — I didn’t know it was 50%.

My point was that it seems strange to be bothered by the rate of violence in the US, coming from a more violent country.

Actually, I was also going make the point that if there was such a thing as ‘stop and search’ in Trinidad, your husband wouldn’t probably care so much, because it would be black people stopping him virtually all the time, and they would be under other black people, and so on to the top of the cops. Of course, a lot of cops here are black, but a lot aren’t. Being controlled — and that’s what stop and frisk is — irks in general, but it definitely irks more at the hands of the Other.

For all the talk about how political correctness affects the white half of the conversation, I think it has just as much of an affect on the black conversation, but its less recognized and thus probably worse. Malcolm X was shot before Dr King, and I for one wonder if there is more to that than some pissed of Nation of Islam types.

Any talk about black communities defending themselves, working hard together and raising themselves up, regardless of what white racsit have done or may do, seems to have been relegated to the fringes. Meanwhile, we celebrate those who have forced ineffective and counter productive concessions from the white ruling class, and we tend to confuse the rare achievment of individual blacks as evidence of overall progress, all in the name of looking for a top down bilateral solution rather than a unilateral bottom up one.

Im not saying that seperate not equal, but I wonder if some amount of equality is a prerequisite for unity. So far the big national solutions havent seem to worked, unless you conflate some mostly laudable pieces of legislation with the real cultural shifts that really helped. Proximity is probably the best cure for racism I know, one cant meet to many people of any color, culture, or creed without meeting some truly wonderful people, unless of course if such meetings take place in coercive or frightening context. This is why the “thug” issue is so harmful, because rightly or wrongly it appearantly drives the racism that many claim to be the problem.

Rightly or wrongly white people are not going to be able to fix the black crime problem. Unfortunately, many would choose not to even if they could, but since they couldnt even if they wanted to thats really not the problem. If anything pointing the finger at racist seems to be just another distraction. Im not saying that there arent real problems caused by real racist causing real suffering, just that being offended is not a winning tactic, even if its an appealing one.

While I am hopeful that black communities can learn to help themselves, as many surely are, I think thats about as far as the racial worldview can help them. Beyond that, we do need to ask questions of poverty and politics, but we need to remember that the efficacy of policy is at least as important as the intent. For all we have done to help the poor in this country, things sure do seem to have the opposite effect from where Im standing, which leads to more calls to help the poor, which will probably lead to more counterproductive actions, at least in the long term. We sure do seem to need to “do something” about everything these days.

Notice, sorry this isnt as nuanced or as polite a post as Id like, but on something this complex my desires to post via phone keyboard and my desire to be at least somewhat concise seem to be getting me into trouble. Thanks to everyone really interested in having an open dialogue, and thanks in advance for pointing out the blind spots in my arguments that your sure to find, hopefully we all grow from this conversation.

Rebecca Trotter, could you point to the demonstration that Rod is “peddling…a-historical horseshit”? I haven’t been following all these threads, and I’d like to read it. I’d like to see where I’m wrong. (And I’m sure that I am wrong; all of us are wrong.) Maybe post it on your blog even, if you don’t want to post any more here.

Church Lady is making a logical mistake, I think. Even assuming her premise that the crime rate in Harlem was once the same as in economically similar areas, that doesn’t mean that Harlem was as safe for white people as those other areas. Harlem was probably more dangerous, even back when whites used to go to the Apollo Theater.

Turmarion: Yes, I do blame blacks and some whites for not listening to critics of desegregation like us. I’m willing to listen respectfully to Al Sharpton; why can’t they listen to me? We probably even agree on a lot of things.

I’m sure the drug war has exacerbated the problems in ‘the ghetto’. But I don’t see how they explain the attack on Kevin McDermott (linked by traddy catholic above).

I’d have to know more about the assailants in question. My guess would be that they were already involved in criminal drug activity and gangs. If not, their behavior is at least strongly influenced by the culture of violence created by drug gangs.

A huge number of the killings in inner city violence is directly drug related. A lot of what isn’t, is the result of living in such a violent drug culture, and seeing that kind of violence as common-place and the norm for dealing with problems of status and territory.

The point is, whether directly or indirectly, the drug war culture has led to an extremely dangerous mindset taking over in many of the young men in these neighborhoods. Take away that war, and people will relatively quickly revert to a more normal mindset. There’s nothing inherent in these people that makes them this way.

I don’t have any grand theory, much less a grand solution, for what has befallen poor black Americans. Though it does seem to me that much of the aberrant behavior noted within the poor black population is equally prevalent today among poor whites and latinos, with perhaps the exception that, anecdotally, the rate of violence outside of the (broken) family seems lower among poor whites. Or perhaps that is just because the population is more diffuse.

What I do want to address is something that Alisha raised in her post, and that is the perception of black men. Now, I’m a lawyer at a pretty white shoe firm and so by and large the segment of the black population I interact with has little or nothing in common with the thugs being discussed by Rod, Alisha and most others here. And I am upper middle class, so the black families I interact with in my neighborhood, local Starbucks, parks, etc. have nothing in common with the thugs. And, critically, I don’t assume that they do have anything in common with the thugs.

As a whole, urban blacks have a mode of conduct that, overall, I find disorienting. Shouting across the street to each other, and just generally being loud. It’s offputting because the people who are more like me – regardless of race – are generally quiet, reserved. So I admit that I do avoid urban black settings, largely because I find it so uncomfortable.

But particularly, as a scrawny white guy, I find young urban black men almost terrifying. And it is because they enshroud themselves in the accoutrements of gangsta’ culture. Whether they are or not, they want to be perceived as violent, impulsive, reckless and irresponsible men. And it would be a fool who did not perceive them as such and respond accordingly.

But in all of these circumstances, I respond to the manner in which the black folks I encounter present themselves based on the interactions I have had with black folks in similar situations. Black lawyers? Just like me, only probably dressed better because, let’s be honest, black men have better style than white dudes and can pull it off. Middle class black folks? Just like me, striving for the same things, worried about the same things. Urban older black folks? Stay close to them, because they know what’s up, who you can trust, and they’ll help you in a pinch. Also treat them with respect, because most of the time they are treated like crap by everybody in society, especially young people in their own community, and a little kindness goes a long way.

On the other hand, overweight black woman at a government office or Amtrak counter? Try to go to a different window or just do it myself, because she has been inculcated with the entitlement culture that keeps her people in chains and beholden to the Democratic Party. Urban black young men. Avoid. Cross the street. Duck into a store. Do not pass go, or they might collect $200. From me. By force.

I suspect most white people do the same thing I do. They have built up a schema for black folks based on their interactions with them and their perceptions. Unfortunately, I suspect some people don’t have a significant number of positive interactions with black folks because they live predominantly in a white world, and so their schema is based on popular culture and the news, none of which present blacks in a positive light. In this regard, I don’t think that black men like Alisha’s husband have the burden of changing minds; I think the white people he encounters have the burden of opening theirs.

But with that being said, if a young black man presents himself as a thug, he shouldn’t blame the legacy of slavery or segregation if a white person avoids him or doesn’t hire him because the white person assumes that all the negativity that attends the gangsta’ persona will be found in any person who adopts it.

Church lady, I don’t know precisely how McDermott’s assailants were affected by the drug war, but I was bothered by a newspaper story I read. Apparently, when the police came to arrest young Mr. Bray, his father held them at gunpoint from a window. Is it any wonder that a child growing up in such an environment would have a warped conscience?

Reading my friend Nick’s post, I couldn’t help but be touched by his honesty even if I don’t always feel the same sense of intimidation. Whenever a well-to-do white man publicly sounds off on the categories of black people he does and doesn’t mind being around, I imagine the indignation of black people at what must seem an irritating approximation of a Field Guide of North American Negroes. This tinge of embarrassment is the root cause of so much unhelpful self-censorship. I am thinking, in particular, of the Derbyshire incident at National Review. But these unhelpful restraints on speech are now so common that whites simply accept that they have to swallow their feelings on these issues, the hypocrisy of their fellows having now become epidemic. Is this really a solution? I don’t think so.

I quite despise leftist multiculturalism, but not for the reason many people on the right do. My approach to other cultures is that of the Society of Jesus. Unlike the cultural Marxists or the self-repressed WASPs, the Jesuits’ philosophy during their missions emphasized the nuanced character of the individual and his culture. We are at bottom souls, spiritual beings blessed by our Creator with free will and personal responsibility. But culture writes over us. It informs our consciences. And every culture has good and bad aspects. The Jesuits applied this philosophy to head-hunters no less than to French princes. The goal was to celebrate and emphasize what is good and noble in the culture as well as the individual… but also to correct, severely if necessary, what is reprobate and morally deficient. However, we must always make these corrections with a keen eye towards the universal presence of original sin, the “mystery of iniquity” at the bottom of all of us. That requires humility and self-chastisement, as well as an openness to strangers who are our brothers and sisters in creation. Tough stuff, but then Jesuits were operating under Christ’s command to be perfect as your Father in heaven its perfect.

Our problem today is that we don’t seek the right balance between individual responsibility and cultural conditioning. A lot of the culture wars are between philosophies that are simply unbalanced. The cultural Marxists tell us that to impose our our idea of good on another culture is prima facie wrong. Indeed, this denial of the natural law becomes the one and only certain moral principle… making all other moral propositions at best quaint expressions of our own cultural conditioning; at worst, imperialist strategies of cultural domination. Against this relativistic nonsense, many on the right simply double-down on the moral and cultural superiority of what they personally find familiar and comfortable.

Every human soul no matter how reprobate wants respect, and often will demand it. We should be prepared to accept that demand. In practice, this means respecting not just the individual but the cultural components that are written over his or her mind. But respect is not the same as capitulation. Real respect requires precisely that we treat other people as moral agents, who must accept the natural consequences of their actions. When people cease to do this, they are being condescending, effectively treating other people as children who are not to be held to an adult standard of moral agency.

This is not lost on many whites when we discuss our feelings about black people. I know many whites who feel they have the terrible choice of singing along with the multicultural chorus while secretly being condescending, or else openly revealing and their fears and frustrations, and suffering the punishment of ostracism, and the accusation of racism.

I am at a loss why you would not discuss this matter with blacks in your circle. I think you are underestimating or over estimating your own weight in the matter. And it belies something perhaps, deeper, that you need to be the arbiter of who they are as adults.

Whatever their feelings, they are just as entitled to have them ad express them. I think the black paradigm is misguided. Blackness is not the source of criminal behavior. Living in said neighborhoods in which this behavior is modeled and practiced would and has the same impact on browns, yellows and whites.

Your black firends, are not children in need of your protection in this manner. I don’t want you to lose your friends and I don’t want to get beaten up confronting young and obnoxious rapscallions. but I think our chouce to retreat feeds some conception that you are they are incapable of tackling tough issues.

Having worked among inner city youth in two US cities. I can say that are hundreds of Churches, civic, organizations adddressing the matter. And I have no doubt that there are numerous success stories. now unless any or all of you are willing to get into the trenches . . . discussion may be useful as issue comprehensiuon — but . . .

I spent several discussion with a bright fiesty lawyer about voting and the need for having ID. I am of course all for it. Makes sense, and is the best protection, aside from personal and professional integrity to safe guarding our process. He went and on about how the poor blacks and how their votes were being disenfranchised by the likes of me because they couldn’t get ID, its expense . . . etc. Never mind that almost every poor black must have ID to drive, cash checks, and those on any subsistence SSi or otherwise have ID, numerous discounts . . . etc. When I suggested that the greatest hurdle for urban class poor people was the inability to get a effective legal assistance and perhaps he should lend his expertise — he said no. Now, I think talk is fie and dandy, but there is no substitute for action.

I once held many of these same beliefs expressed here, well some. But I found that inner city populations have a strange simple honesty about what’s what. It was unnerving. I found them loving, smart, sincere, and more than anything else — just living for their children day to day. Underneath the veneer of our superiority godlike assumptions about what was what, they forgave my naivete’, stupidity, and arrogance and made one thing very clear. Because I was there to work with their kids, no one was going to mess with me. And they never did.

Harlem was then and despite perception, I bet Harlem is still relatively a safe place for whites. I have to laugh that anyone believes the idea that white people are targets in any black neighborhood mere because they are white.

I am at a loss why you would not discuss this matter with blacks in your circle. I think you are underestimating or over estimating your own weight in the matter. And it belies something perhaps, deeper, that you need to be the arbiter of who they are as adults.

Whatever their feelings, they are just as entitled to have them ad express them. I think the black paradigm is misguided. Blackness is not the source of criminal behavior. Living in said neighborhoods in which this behavior is modeled and practiced would and has the same impact on browns, yellows and whites.

Your black firends, are not children in need of your protection in this manner. I don’t want you to lose your friends and I don’t want to get beaten up confronting young and obnoxious rapscallions. but I think our chouce to retreat feeds some conception that you are they are incapable of tackling tough issues.

There’s too much to lose. I have been the target of a threatened complaint to the human resources department at a former employer’s, because I used the word “savages” to describe terrorists (who weren’t, by the way, black). My accuser said I was causing a hostile work environment by using a word that had once been applied to blacks by racist whites. It was an absurd complaint, but it completely intimidated me. Had that gone through, I would have had my job and my career at risk. It got defused, but I never let my guard down again.

There is no upside to these conversations about highly emotional issues, at least no upside worth the risks involved. It is basically impossible to talk about race and sexuality.

In Rods defense, its not as if he is the only one who can initiate these conversations. His friends could easily read his blog, as many have pointed out, and they are just as capable of bringing these topics up as he is. They could even try to make him feel comftorable talking about these subjects if they wanted to.

As divisive as politics, race, and sexuality can be in our culture I find it hard to believe that anyone can claim to have never avoided what they thought would be a counter productive conversation. In many cases, such self censorship is just an attempt at being diplomatic, even if thats long the overall long term affect. With so many people these days turning to offense taking as thier primary or only method as argument, people who do want to have real conversations often keep quiet because they feel no one else wants to talk about it.

The breakdown of discourse into finger pointingbis true of American conversations in general. People to often confuse silent aquiessence or loud, vocal agreement with civility, as we can see on any internet thread where the minority opinion can only be seen by the majority as unreasonable, uncivilized and flat out immoral. If anyone here finds that they can talk to all thier friends about anything, I hope that you consider yourself exceptionally fortunate. Or you might ask yourself if you only have friends who agree with you.

Despite all of this, I find my experience to be quite different than Rods. In general I have had a much easier time talking about race directly with black people as a white man than I do online. Of course in person I get to be selective of who I open up to, and because of this I think my positive experiences talking about race have more to do with the fairness of those with whom I have spoke than they have anything to do with what I have said. Recognizing that, I do find that discussions of race go better when you are willing to change the framing and context of the debate, with factors other than race being an important part of any in depth conversation on race.

I did my certification for the public schools in a historically black college, and I had several black professors who actually mourned the sense of community and solidarity, and the respect for elders and for education back in the Bad Old Days. None of them would go back to that, but they expressed pretty much what you’re saying here, and that’s a valid point. Certainly much of desegregation was done in an ineffective or even counterproductive way, for reasons so complex I don’t think anyone really understands them.

My point was that when a white person says things like this, a black person is going to tend to perceive this as a rather hectoring way of saying “You folks don’t know how good you had it back when y’all knew your place!” I’m not saying that you’re saying that; but surely you see why it would be perceived thus? Hell, Rod is really touchy and thin-skinned about non-Southerners criticizing the South, and as an Appalachian, I get peed off more readily if a non-Appalachian makes a crack about Appalachia than otherwise, even if they’re right. You always talk about how human nature is tribal—surely you get that no one likes someone else running down one’s tribe?

Certainly we should be able to have civil conversations about these things. I think getting there is a complex and touchy process. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but it is. All the more reason to put in the effort to do so.

BTW, I agree with you re Iraq. The difference between that and blacks domestically is that as Iraq is a different country, it shouldn’t have been our concern to “fix” it. We had no business there.

Put aside race: do you agree or disagree that the less intelligent, in general, across ethnicities, tend to be more impulsive, and show less future orientation?

I honestly don’t have a strong opinion on that. I’m not really familiar with the research in that area, nor with the terms of the discussion. I think it would also be necessary to correlate such things with crime or violence or other negative social behaviors. It seems intuitively reasonable that a less intelligent person is more impulsive or shows less future orientation; but lots of things that seem intuitively reasonable turn out to be otherwise. I’m not copping out on this—I’m just admitting that I don’t really know, and I’d rather not state an opinion on something I don’t have good information about.

I guess the reason that discussions of this sort are difficult is that they touch on what it means to be human. If Group X can be shown to be more athletic or better-looking or better able to endure cold weather than member of my group, it wouldn’t bother me much. I’m not athletic and don’t much care about athletics; I look good enough for those who love me; and if it’s cold, I get out my coat. Intelligence, though, is thought of as that uniquely human trait that separates us from the animals. It is seen as that which makes us human. Moreover, to be impulsive—to lack self-control—and to be unable to plan ahead, are not just seen neutrally as traits. They are seen as moral failings. If someone starts a fight on impulse or spends all their money and comes up short for necessities, we don’t usually say, “Oh, well—too bad your intelligence, impulse control, and future orientation aren’t as good as they could be. Them’s the breaks.” We morally rebuke them. To put it another way: to say that some groups of people are hardwired to be less intelligent, more impulsive, and less future-oriented than others is very close to saying that some groups are less moral, or worse, less human than others. I realize that’s not quite correct, but surely you see the perception?

Given that, thought experiment: If it were proved to your satisfaction that your ethnic group, or your wife’s or your family’s, were on average less intelligent, more impulsive, etc., how would it make you feel, especially if outside groups were going on about it? I’m not saying it’s necessarily logical, but it’s how people tend to react, and the reason why conversations are difficult.

Finally, I notice that neither you nor M_Young has answered my earlier hypothetical question. I, for one, would like to know!

Back home, at last. I wanted to underscore I point I made earlier: that there are a number of topics I don’t discuss with certain friends, because the risk of us getting into a relationship-damaging fight about them is too great. Politics is a big one. I’m not going to talk to someone, conservative or liberal, who takes their politics and themselves so seriously that they feel entitled to say anything they feel like saying to me, because they’re Right and I am Wrong.

When I was in high school and college, I felt that it was my obligation to take every opportunity to lecture white people well known to me when one of them would use the n-word. I was wrong. It wasn’t that I was wrong to object to use of the word. It was the spirit in which I did it. I was very proud to plant my moral flag right in their face, and let them know what I thought of them. No matter what I might have told myself at the time, I didn’t want to change their minds. I wanted to enjoy the feeling of moral superiority. Eventually they quit talking about race entirely in front of me, because they didn’t want me to get on my high horse.

You know what? They were right. If I hadn’t have been the kind of person who enjoyed feeling self-righteous, I would have handled it a different way, and made those white people understand my moral objection without being made to feel that I had rejected them, or judged them harshly. Maybe I would have earned the right to be heard by them, and might have changed their minds. As it happened, I got what I wanted — those people to stop saying the n-word around me — but it didn’t happen because they had a change of heart. It happened because I made such a scene if someone did that that I got the reputation of being a dickhead on the topic. These people wanted to continue to get along with me — as I did with them; we came from the same town, and had a history — so they knew it was better not to talk about this topic at all with me.

That was my fault. I made them feel unsafe talking about this topic with me, because they understood that I might go off on them. I’m thinking about two or three of these people right now, and in the time I’ve been back in my hometown and spent time in their company, I haven’t heard them use racial slurs. I would like to think that it’s because they repented, or outgrew that kind of thing. There’s a part of me that suspects they just don’t want a repeat of the kind of dressing-down I used to give them back in the day. Whatever the truth, I can never discover it, because my past behavior pretty much put the topic off-limits.

I’m thinking too of a gay co-worker of mine at the Dallas Morning News who knew of my opinions, but who was, and is, a good guy, and invited me to lunch once to talk about them. I liked him a lot, and respected him. I couldn’t agree with him on same-sex marriage, but I was really grateful to him for granting me the liberty to express my views without doing to me what I did to my racist friends all those years ago: using what I believed (and believe) was their serious moral fault to assert my own intoxicating sense of moral superiority.

” Moreover, to be impulsive—to lack self-control—and to be unable to plan ahead, are not just seen neutrally as traits. They are seen as moral failings.”

That’s exactly the point…the recognition of differences in cognitive ability, even at the individual level, can give insight into behavior that might otherwise be characterized as a moral issue. In fact, I have fairly poor impulse control, probably way below the average for my level of cognitive ability. The knowledge that this is in part my biology has been liberating. Rather than try and (mostly) fail to apply sheer willpower to the problem, I have developed (really, mostly adopted) little tricks to help me spend more ‘time on task’ (though obviously it will be evident from the amount I comment here that I fail a lot too).

I am fond of the old joke, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

If it were proved to your satisfaction that your ethnic group, or your wife’s or your family’s, were on average less intelligent, more impulsive, etc., how would it make you feel, especially if outside groups were going on about it?

For myself, I have a pretty good idea of what my personal IQ is; I’ve never had a formal IQ test, but I can extrapolate through proxies (SAT, ASVAB, and a few free online IQ quizzes) to get a decent estimate. If it could be shown to me that my ancestry group was low-IQ (which it isn’t, BTW — I am familiar with its data), that would not be a reflection on me personally. I am acutely aware of the strengths and weaknesses of my particular ancestry group, and I would not be offended by a critique by an outsider that was informed and given in the right spirit (indeed, I have read a number of such critiques). Easier said than done, I know, and I fully agree with your point that most people get too emotional about criticism from “outside the family” to have civil discussions, but I mean what I say about myself.

I’ll talk about my wife. Her father’s line is Scots-Irish Appalachian. These are the people who moved down from the hill country in the early twentieth century to work in the textile mills of the Carolinas; much of that industry has now moved overseas. I do not have to explain to you the good and the bad of Scots-Irish hill people; you know that all too well. My wife’s mother’s line is half-English, settled mostly in the South (not sure where they fit into the Albion’s Seed quadripartite matrix) and half-German, settled in St. Louis. My wife grew up in her father’s hometown, where her father’s people have lived for generations, not far from Appalachia’s foothills; thus, if I had to put my wife in one cultural box, it would be Scots-Irish. The town straddles the line between generic middle-class suburbia and, well, peckerwood country.

My wife and I have a pretty good estimate of her personal IQ (as with mine, through proxies rather than a formal test) — well above average for her ancestry, or anybody’s for that matter (if I may toot her horn). My wife is also well aware of the good and the bad of her people, and of the South and Bible Belt culture in general; she criticizes the failings thereof more than I do, and wants very much not to be associated therewith (not in a “I became an atheist, moved North, and had several live-in boyfriends, all to get back at Daddy” kind of way, let me be clear). My wife would be offended by an “all Southerners are stupid rednecks” argument, but not by a reasoned, informed, nuanced critique from a well-meaning outsider (which, as you might expect, are not all that common).

Also, FWIW, I’ve discussed Albion’s Seed with my wife (she hasn’t read it herself), and she is not bothered when I point out that her kind were arguably the least intellectually accomplished of the four “folkways” examined in the book. I’ll paraphrase her reaction as, “Well, yeah, I can see that.”

Finally, I notice that neither you nor M_Young has answered my earlier hypothetical question. I, for one, would like to know!

You did not respond to my reaction to your mentioning of Steve Sailer’s “infamous” Katrina essay, but nevermind, I’ll take you up.

In everyone’s family tree there are some real POS’s (pieces of you know what). Some were ordinary POS’s, some were the kind you read about in history books (genocide, pillaging villages, etc.). For instance, genetics researchers have found that there may be up to 20 million men (and, I would figure, about that many women) who are direct descendants of the astonishingly prolific Genghis Khan, one of history’s great mass-murdering warlords and tyrants (from many perspectives, at least) — and those are just the ones alive today. Had ol’ Grandpap Genghis been killed early in life, which would have been a godsend to his 13th-century victims, all of those lives that have flowed from his, for good and ill, would not have been lived. There are POS’s among my closest blood relations, people from whom I am estranged, and yet I would not be here corresponding with you if not for some of them.

What can I say? It would be heartbreaking to me to know that one of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren was a POS as described in your hypothetical; I am personally and painfully acquainted with growing up with that kind of person (as is my wife, to a lesser extent: she has an uncle, father of some dear cousins, who is a white trashy ne’er-do-well). It would be also heartbreaking to contemplate that none of my descendants, for the rest of time, would be part of a people — a nation, a tribe, or what have you — that was recognizable to me and my wife.

Your hypothetical stated that one’s non-white descendants would be “proud” of not being uncool WASPs. That is key to me in answering you. If America’s British-core, northern Euro, largely Protestant Christian heritage is an object of contempt to my descendants, something to whose eventual eradication they are pleased to contribute in their small way — and this goes even if they are white (say, deracinated SWPLs) as well as the mixed-race people of your hypothetical — then, whatever their virtues (as you state in the hypothetical), they are something profoundly different from the people who came before them to make America what it is, for good and ill (mostly good, I would say).

In fact, I have fairly poor impulse control, probably way below the average for my level of cognitive ability. The knowledge that this is in part my biology has been liberating

I though I had very little genetic strength or cardiovascular capacity. Instead of just developing little “tricks” to get around this like never using the stairs, I instead just started running and lifting weights. Lo and behold, my “genetic” limitations went away and I became stronger and less likely to get winded!

The belief that your abilities and accomplishments are due to inborn genetic traits is rather common among white Americans. I wonder if they themselves would argue that the tendency to adhere to that belief system itself is an inborn genetic trait of white Americans.

M_Young, surely you’re aware that 19th Century “scientists” used the purported differences of various races in intelligence, impulse control, etc., to argue that some races were more bestial, more like animals, and thus less trustworthy and deserving of domination, enslavement, etc. Right? And do you really think most people would look at it as clinically as you say here? And you are aware that the Nazis didn’t use the supposed inferiority of non-Aryans as a heuristic to help them “develop tricks” to help them function better in Aryan society, right? This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen you say.

Tyro: The belief that your abilities and accomplishments are due to inborn genetic traits is rather common among white Americans.

“A photographer is by definition not a participant in whatever they photograph.”

I think this is the wrong thread, Churchlady

I chose ‘participant’ quite deliberately, because as anyone who has been to a wedding knows, the photographer is indeed an active participant, setting (or at least influencing) the time table, arranging people, needing to get at least some knowledge of the relationships of the people attending the wedding, they dynamics of those relationships, etc. Most consult with the couple before the wedding, looking for details of their courtship and/or history that will enable them to take more ‘resonant’ pictures. For a ‘hired hand’, wedding photog is a position that is both integral and intimate.

I just don’t see over generalizations of IQ, or specific ideas of IQ as formed by proxy, as all that useful in any discussion, especially not when it sounds a little bit too much like 19th century ethnocentric racial theory. I dount ideas of racial superiority was anyones intended message, but be carefuful with that kind of thing.

Noah, I didn’t interpret that you were expecting a response re Sailer’s essay, but since you insist: Early in Sailer’s essay, he has this to say (my emphasis):

All this is now common parlance, more or less. What you won’t hear, except from me, is that “Let the good times roll” is an especially risky message for African-Americans. The plain fact is that they tend to possess poorer native judgment than members of better-educated groups. Thus they need stricter moral guidance from society.

Note carefully that this is before he mentions anything about Atlanta or Seattle; he appears to be referring to blacks as a whole–in short, to be making the “sweeping condemnation” you say he’s not making. He doesn’t say it explicitly here, but from his overall corpus it’s clear that he thinks the “poorer native judgment” is biological, hereditary, and more or less irremediable; things which I think have yet to be demonstrated convincingly. Finally, he obviously suggests a more paternalistic government vis-à-vis blacks. I think it’s not hard to see how all that would at least be perceived as offensive, right?

It is interesting that strong civic government has arisen only in some places and not others; and that it seems to work better in some than others. It should be a topic for conversation and study. Study, however, doesn’t mean we come in with an ideological hammer (“race realism”, or for that matter, PCJ) ahead of time. It means we look at history, culture, politics, biology, religion, and on and on, over centuries or even millennia of time. We don’t start by saying, “Gee, those East Asians and Northwestern Europeans must be smarter and more self-controlled since they have stronger civic societies.” That’s assuming what needs to be proved in the first place. In fact, the Romans the 1st Century AD would have made the exact opposite assumptions about the Northwestern Europeans—then known as “barbarians”—and not without reason. It is conceivable that race plays a role; but I think we’re way off from any evidence of that. So, yes, let’s see why Kobe played out differently from New Orleans; but let’s not assume our answers prematurely.

If it could be shown to me that my ancestry group was low-IQ (which it isn’t, BTW — I am familiar with its data), that would not be a reflection on me personally…. I fully agree with your point that most people get too emotional about criticism from “outside the family” to have civil discussions, but I mean what I say about myself.

Fair enough. That’s my point—very few people of any ethnicity, etc., could be as dispassionate about this as you are. Even Derbyshire said that—speaking of himself as a STEM person, he noted that anti-social loners such as he would say, “Oh, well, too bad about my group, but that doesn’t reflect on me,” while pointing out that most people can’t look at it that way, or can do so only with great difficulty.

Your hypothetical stated that one’s non-white descendants would be “proud” of not being uncool WASPs.

I looked back and realize I phrased it infelicitously. I didn’t mean proud not to be WASP, but not being WASP and being proud of whatever they are. In short, I was not saying that white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant culture would be “an object of contempt” to them; merely that they were proud of their own culture, or better, subculture. I mean, a Catholic who says he’s proud to be Catholic is not thereby denigrating Protestantism (or vice versa); and a Hispanic who uses English fluently in day-to-day life outside the house and expects and raises his kids to, as well, but prefers to speak Spanish at home, is not thereby “despising” English-derived culture. One might like Shakespeare and De Vega.

It would be also heartbreaking to contemplate that none of my descendants, for the rest of time, would be part of a people — a nation, a tribe, or what have you — that was recognizable to me and my wife.

See, right here’s the nub. Just by statistics, it’s likely that you and I both have at least one line of descent from Romans (who were, after all, all over Europe and who intermarried with the Germans and Celts widely, especially after the fall of Rome). I assume you are of British Isle descent, as your wife is, as I am; so it’s not impossible that all of us have a Phoenician or two in the woodpile (they had trade routes there for centuries, and doubtlessly the sailors got lonely….). At this fascinating site you can read the details explaining why it’s quite likely that you, I, and our wives descend from the Prophet Muhammad. Speaking of the Phoenicians, they and many other ancient cultures (e.g. the Khazars, Thracians, Scythians, Hittites, Tokharioi, and on and on), while having living descendants, have died out as identifiable cultures and peoples.

Should a Roman pagan, given a glimpse of you, his distant descendant, be heartbroken that his descendants, for the rest of time, not participate in the Roman culture recognizable to him, and even worse, would be disciples of those hated Nazoreans? Should one of our Muslim ancestors weep that we are kaffir? Would my ancestors, Baptist for two centuries, gnash their teeth that I’m Catholic? Would their ancestors of the Middle Ages gnash their teeth that some of their descendants left the Church in the first place?

You seem, Noah, to be putting too much weight on the things of this world. In two thousand years, assuming the human race hasn’t offed itself, or that the Parousia hasn’t occurred, it may be that no culture—our own or anyone else’s—“recognizable to us” still exists, or ever will, “forever”. Yes, whatever is there will descend from the cultures of today, just as ours does from Rome, Greece, Israel, etc. However, just as a Roman, Greek, or Jew of antiquity (or even a Chinese—as superficially continuous as it seems, Chinese history has a lot more change and discontinuity than most people realize) would be hard-put to recognize Classical civilization in today’s world, so may it be with us, could we visit the distant future.

As a Christian, my faith is that Christ will “be with us always, even to the end of the Earth.” Beyond that, I don’t think he gave us any assurances about how many would still be following it (Luke 18:8), or what they’d look like or what language they’d speak. He certainly didn’t suggest that any culture, race, language, or ethnic group would be here “until the end of the Earth”. Just like individuals, whole cultures and civilizations are “like the grass” (Psalm 103), here today and gone tomorrow. I would be more concerned that my daughter, any children she has when she grows up, and more remote descendants be Christian (being theologically more or less universalist, I wouldn’t get as bothered as some might if she or other descendants became Buddhist or Hindu or such; but I think that all who are saved are saved through Christ ultimately, even if they don’t realize it in this world, and that the normal, and best, means of salvation is through the Christian faith here on Earth) than I would about race, culture, whatever. If my grandchildren or great grandchildren or such are black or Asian, if they speak Spanish or Japanese or some language that doesn’t even exist yet, if they are red or yellow or black or white, I think they’ll still be “precious in His sight”. What’s to be “heartbroken” about?

Anyway, your “answer”—which seems like a non-answer, to me—appears to be, “If it’s POS or different culture, I don’t want either!”

Let me ask it more directly: If you have a son or daughter who grows up and one day brings home a Hispanic Catholic or a black Pentecostal or a Chinese Buddhist—and assuming the beloved is in every other way the most exemplary avatar of what you’d consider a perfect son or daughter-in-law possible—what do you do?

Great to read these threads. This is that fabled “conversation” that we “should be having!”

Rod, can you say more about Christianity in relation to all this?

Sailer, Derbyshire, et al, are interesting to read, because unlike the SWPL MSM they’re not complete BS, but I find the “we are doomed” pessimism lacking in a certain sense of grace that one finds among Christians. Christianity can lend a sense that it is possible for things to get better, in spite of all. Check out the story of Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice.

On the other hand, what’s the deal with the black church? Of course, in the MSM, we are treated to endless variations on the pious reverence toward the black church’s moral authority… and yet, in spite of the fact that “black Americans are the most religiously observant people on earth” as we keep hearing, many of these congregants seem to lead conspicuously unregenerate lives, if the statistics on drugs and sex are anything to go by.

Check out the many depressing statistics in Ralph Richard Banks’s (black Stanford prof) book “Is Marriage for White People?” including “Married black men are more than twice as likely than other groups of men to have affairs”… “Black men who had completed college or higher were the least likely to have a single long-term partner and most likely to be in a relationship with multiple sexual partners”…

And then there’s the “down-low.”

So why does the black church seem to be so bad at encouraging sexually moral lives among its members?

Rod, you article is powerful and brave. Alisha’s honesty is incredibly brave.

What has happened this past weekend after the verdict reinforces all the truth spoken in this article.

I am a conservative, and I’m white. And there’s so much wrong with the post analysis of this trial, where to start?

First, does anyone else but me think that saying, in attempt to defuse racism that “George Zimmerman mentored black children” is ironic? It’s like me saying I’m not racist because I have black friends. If we have to go out of our way to make the point that we’re not racist by pointing out the color of the skin of who we mentor, or acquaint with, then fundamentally there’s the definition of the problem that remains.

Until the statements are “George Zimmerman mentors children”, the debate will be endless.

I am personally gratified that justice has prevailed, because of a man defending himself. I would be no less gratified had the perpetrator been a different color.

And the most disheartening thing of all is that is now appears the resentment is so institutionalized, that even the top executive branch leaders of our country, Obama and Holder can’t resist the temptation for a little Django-style revenge.

If these leaders want to lead by example, then respect the jury verdict. Let it drop. If either of these “leaders” have one ounce of integrity, abandon your plan to file federal civil actions against George Zimmerman. Otherwise, you are no better than two more of Alicia’s black thugs, because what this looks like to the rest of us is “Now that we got the power, we’re gonna f**k you up, you mother f**kers”.